Nick Kyrgios is on Rod Laver Arena, staring down at Novak Djokovic in front of a packed crowd with all the eyes on him. This is where he’s always supposed to be.
But the picture is different. There is a microphone in his hand, not a racquet. He’s not locking horns with Djokovic in a crucial Australian Open encounter but interviewing him after yet another Djokovic smash-up.
He’s good at it. He asks Djokovic interesting questions and he has a relaxed manner about him, one which easily builds a rapport. Kyrgios finishes up by asking Djokovic about the secret to winning grand slams, because he says he wants to come back and beat the Serbian, even if it’s just one time.
It’s good television. Kyrgios has always been good television. There is no cliched soundbites or paint-by-numbers analysis – like the best of Kyrgios on the court, his commentary is compelling in a way that is easy for people to connect with.
Seeing him in action, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he is thinking of doing this all the time. Kyrgios has long talked about retiring young and he said in a newspaper column earlier this week that if he was to walk away soon he’d be alright with the decision.
It seems a product of his complicated relationship with tennis. He clearly loves the sport and speaks with a great affection of players and their styles and his own memories, both good and bad.
It’s equally as clear that tennis is his terrible joy, a game that either makes him live a lot or die a little, a blessing that has made him and a curse that slowly destroys him. At times that destruction has been mental but right now it is physical.
His knee and his wrist are slowing him down so much so that he’s barely played since his brilliant 2022 season and the longer he stays away the more difficult the road back to the good times becomes.
As his off-court career looks brighter by the day, Kyrgios has a choice before him and it’s the only choice he’s ever really had when it comes tennis, the only one that really matters, the choice he’s been unable to settle on for his whole career – does he want to be the best tennis player he can be or does he want to be something else?
The former is the more difficult path. Kyrgios, who turns 29 in April, is not old in tennis years or real life. His tremendous physical talents will be around for a while yet and he’s got plenty of experience at the top level to back it up.
There’s still an obvious desire to play on big stages, to lock horns with the best in the world, to feed that side of him that knows he can and should be one of the sport’s giants. But doing that will become harder and harder as the days go by, even for someone as talented as Kyrgios.
He has reached a point where turning up, hitting big and serving bigger aren’t going to be enough anymore, if they ever were. Things like consistent mental application, top-notch preparation and emotional regulation become more and more important as a player ages and they have rarely been a strength for Kyrgios.
His greatest victories came when he was able to overwhelm the minutiae of process and thunder his way to the outcome, which is the brilliant and maddening end result of raw talent fuelled by an emotional fire that can be channelled but never fully controlled.
That’s why he’s one of the most compelling players of his generation – despite his recent lay-off he is still the biggest star in Australian tennis, even eclipsing the dogged and willing Alex de Minaur who, for all his success and his fighting heart and a lack of complications that could bring him straight out of Australian sport central casting, does not electrify the nation, for good or for ill, in the same way.
Kyrgios’s 2022 campaign, the best of his career, was tantalising in it’s possibilities. He has never been more likeable than when ripped through the Australian Open doubles with Thanasi Kokkinakis and he has never been closer to his zenith than his run to the Wimbledon final.
He accomplished so much and it still felt like he was just beginning to discover what was possible and the idea of really letting the motor open up and seeing just how far all this can go feels exhilarating. It feels rare as well because there’s a lot of people who can be good on TV and social media but not as many who can win majors.
Maybe Kyrgios can come back and be that player again, or go even further and become the player he has always believed he could be. But sometimes you can’t put a saddle on a mustang and at a certain point even the truest believers have to admit a player is what his record says he is.
Some gifts can’t ever be tamed and even if Kyrgios’s could be, there’s always the chance they still might not be enough. Even if he put everything into it, there’s still a possibility of failure and that idea of going all and still not being enough is the secret, greatest fear of any athlete with the potential to be great.
On the other side of this hard, complex and difficult road is a sunnier, easier future. Kyrgios could travel the world doing commentary, make big money and look good doing it and keeping close to tennis without being a slave to it. He can finally put down the unbearable weight his own abilities place on his shoulders.
Banter with Djokovic at centre court. Crack one-liners about how a player’s legs are as big as one of your second serves. Tell jokes about getting fined for tanking a match years ago. Leave the wreckage of the fast lane and settle into the loosely defined but still lucrative world of the influencer.
Give up the crushing loneliness of an individual sport and be around people all the time, because a broadcast team is still a team, and never again be stuck in the middle of the court with a crowd howling at you, hoping you explode right in front of them.
It is something close to the best of both worlds. Kyrgios can still be a part of his sport, perhaps a more visible part, without going through the ringer. The burden of greatness and expectation would be over, he could luxuriate in the action rather than be drowned by it. He can finally beat this game by leaving it.
The same day as his newspaper column was released he took to Instagram to affirm he would be playing on. The microphone will be waiting for him until he puts down his racquet for the last time and decides to start building a new career one broadcast or Instagram reel at a time.
His return to the court remains uncertain. He hopes his wrist will be ready for Wimbledon and the US Open but admitted it was no guarantee. There is no clock on the ultimate decision but the longer Kyrgios is sidelined, the closer we come to the end of one sporting life and the beginning of another.
But it still might go either way. Only Kyrgios knows what he wants, only he knows whether he can stand to give up being the man in the arena for the life of a spectator.
He’d gain a lot by doing it but he’d be giving up just as much. Nobody else can know if it’ll be worth it, because, the same way it’s been his whole career, nobody else can make the choice for him.
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